Figures culled by the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) Sangharsh Morcha, India’s top civil rights group fighting for strict implementation of India’s premier rural guarantee scheme, floated by the UPA government in 2005, have revealed that Gujarat is the worst pay master, highest highest gap among 20 major Indian states between officially declared minimum wages and NREGA wages.

While a lot is known about fatal accidents caused in Gujarat’s premier shipbreaking yard at Alang because of  lack  of occupational safety, a yet-to-be-published study “Labour Conditions in Surat Textile Industry", supported by Bonn-based  Südwind Institute for Economics and Ecumenism , is all set to create a flutter. It has estimated that, in the last three years, 84 fatal accidents have been reported in registered textile processing units in Surat, in which 114 workers died.

  In a controversial observation, a recent book on human rights lawyering has said that there are greater possibilities of success in legal struggles for the victims of caste-based discrimination than communal violence. The book, titled "Breathing Life into the Constitution: Human Rights Lawyering in India" by Saumya Uma and Arvind Narrain, believes that this is because communal violence is often perpetrated for political gains, to "enjoy" political clout.

Data released by the London-based WaterAid, a high-profile international non-profit organization, which "supports" the Narendra Modi government's programmes like Swachh Bharat Mission and National Rural Drinking Water Programme, show that India is behind all its neighbours, including Pakistan and Bangladesh, in providing “basic access” to clean water.

  In a sharp admission, the World Bank in its new report, "India Development Update", released this month, has said it is unable to solve a crucial "puzzle". Providing a graphic picture of 10 different indicators of growth, including the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), it says, the question that puzzles is, "why" India's reforms "have not yet succeeded in reversing the slowdown in investment, exports, and certain other aspects of the economy."

  Well-known Dalit rights expert Anand Teltumbde is all set to trigger hornet's nest by insisting on the need to "revamp" the reservation policy for scheduled castes (SCs), scheduled tribes (STs), and other backward classes (OBCs), allegedly meant to "empower" the underprivileged sections in India. Teltumbde wants reservation to be "delinked from castes", saying, this should be done by "creating a separate schedule."

  Taking strong objection to the Right to Education (RTE) Act, a new book, seeking to provide a future vision of different social sectors, carries a strongly-worded paper which says that the much-celebrated law has not only failed to provide universal access to free education. Worse, it argues, within five years of its implementation, the legislation is being effectively used to "weaken the public education system further."

Modi off seaplane in Narmada-filled Sabarmati river Top sources in the Gujarat government have confided to Counterview that scarcity of water flowing from Narmada dam is going to be a "permanent feature". Pointing out that this has been "internally agreed upon" at the highest level, a senior official, refusing to be named, said, if till recently Gujarat was at ease, and was using Narmada waters "indiscriminately", as there were no dams in Madhya Pradesh, "things have changed."

  The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), which India’s leading business information consultancy firm and think tank, has estimated that the unemployment rate in the country has reached 7.09 per cent in the week ending February 25, 2018, the highest in the last 71 weeks. Exactly a year ago, on February 26, 2017, the country’s unemployment rate was just 4.35 per cent.